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Massachusetts has decided to become the sixth state--joining Illinois, New Jersey, Hawaii, Maryland, and Washington--to bypass the United States Constitution and demonstrate its utter ignorance of what this country is all about. The legislature there has voted to bypass the Electoral College system for choosing the president and vice-president in favor of a national popular vote.

I'm beginning to wonder how many Americans still understand why this country is called the United States of America. I suspect a combination of dumbed-down public schools, the unconscionable expansion of federalism and an activist judiciary contribute to a certain level of ignorance regarding the true nature of our democratic republic, but it still amazes me how many Americans don't get it.

The true genius of that democratic republic is that it consists of fifty separate constituencies loosely united under a federal umbrella. Why is that genius? Ask yourself a simple question: if you want a stop light installed at a dangerous intersection in your neighborhood, who would you rather have to deal with, your local town officials--or a federal bureaucrat in Washington, D.C.? Even more to the point, who would have a better understanding of the problem, a local official who might drive through that intersection himself, or someone in Washington, D.C. who's never heard of it?

If one makes the assumption that democracy works best when it serves the interests of the greatest number of people possible, then it should be apparent that the highest level individual empowerment begins at the local level and emanates outward. Or to put it more bluntly, it's a hellluva lot easier to get in the face of your town councilman and give him a piece of your mind, than it is to get a sit-down with one your state's two Senators. And even if you have enough juice to get a sit-down with him, the odds of getting some face time with the president of the United States are probably higher than winning the Powerball lottery.

There are a lot of powerful people--mostly leftists--who would like to turn this equation on its head. The expansion of federalism at the expense of the states is little more than a grand attempt to centralize as much power as possible in Washington, D.C. It is the attempt to make individual Americans as impotent as possible by moving as many decisions as far possible away from the local, county and state level, where an individual's power is greatest, towards the federal level--where the overwhelming majority of Americans don't count for anything.

The great irony of those championing the demise of the Electoral College is that they are ostensibly ( I say ostensibly because I believe there is nothing pure about the motive here) doing so to promote more freedom, not less.

What a load of baloney. Right now a presidential candidate, most of whom come from America's semi-permanent "political class" with all its elitist trappings, is still forced to "sully" himself and campaign in what is euphemistically referred to as "flyover country" because the Electoral College votes of those states still mean something. He has to eat the occasional corn dog instead of arugula salad in order to demonstrate his "solidarity" with people who "cling" to all those things he finds inherently beneath his dignity. He has to address "inane" local issues that would ordinarily be delegated to "lesser" human beings.

Now do away with the Electoral college. All the same elitist politician has to do now is set up shop at five star hotels in America's five or ten largest cities by population. He can "root" for the Yankees while he's in New York and the Dodgers while he's in LA. He can blow virtually his entire campaign war chest making sure he nails down the popular vote in a handful of places and be done with it.

And federal power expands exponentially as a result.

Obviously this is not what the Founding Fathers had in mind. They took great pains to ensure the separation of powers at the federal level and equally great pains to ensure that the individual states had a substantial say in how this country was governed. So much so they included the input of state legislatures in that "pesky" Constitutional Amendment process that the American left finds so "problematic."

That's the same process the left likes to ignore when they pass local gun control laws in violation of the Second Amendment, or speech codes on college campuses in violation of the First. Once again in this instance, the Constitutional provisions which clearly spell out the role of the Electoral College are apparently irrelevant to those whose "wisdom" supersedes the law of the land.

Let me be a bit indelicate here: any American who thinks investing more power in the federal government is a good idea is either a moron--or working for that government. The fact that state legislatures in six states have voted to make their states less influential in selecting the person who would occupy the highest office in the land is clear evidence that historical ignorance is a burgeoning phenomenon.

As for the people who think the elimination of the Electoral College means every vote "will count equally," try selling that garbage in North Dakota or any other low-population state which would be routinely ignored in every presidential election thereafter. What these "do-gooders" are really advocating is the eventual dissolution of states' rights altogether, and the permanent entrenchment of all meaningful power in Congress and the Oval Office--or more accurately, in the King and His Court.

The United States of America? The United Cities of America would be more like it. No doubt that works for those who believe centralized government is the be-all and end-all. For those who still believe in freedom and representative government, it's a complete crock.

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